The December Titled Blitz Arena was one with a little surprise. It was not won by a Grandmaster as usual, but an International Master - IM Minh Le Tuan (@mutdpro) from Vietnam. He was leading the Arena for most of the event and managed to finish with a 12 point lead over second place. This was the third time an IM has won the Titled Arena and the second time for IM Minh Le Tuan. The first event he won being back in September 2018. He is also now the fourth person to win a Titled Arena for a second time.

Second place was taken by GM David Paravyan (@drop_stone), who got to the podium for the first time after playing 14 events. Third place was taken by TA regular, GM Nihal Sarin (@nihalsarin2004). Following on from that, fourth place was anonymous GM @FeegLood with fifth place going to Armenian GM Zaven Andriasian (@Zaven_ChessMood).

This Arena was decided by berserk rate more than streaks. First and second place both had a berserk rate of 98%, while streaks rarely lasted for a long time. IM Minh Le Tuan took the lead after 1 hour played and did not lose it for the rest of the Arena, making it a very convincing win. For part of the Arena he was leading with 20 points! GM David Paravyan was in second place for most of the time and he also managed to beat IM Minh Le Tuan four times in their seven games. But in the end that didn‘t secure victory overall, as IM Minh Le Tuan managed to win six more games in a streak (and therefore were each worth two additional points). For the third place down the leaderboard the points were much closer and every win counted:

The next Titled Arena will be in two weeks! You can watch it here. Stay tuned for the next Titled Arena post, where we will announce the dates for the next few months!